When comparing Power Grid vs Arcadia Quest, the Slant community recommends Power Grid for most people. In the question“What are the best board games?”Power Grid is ranked 21st while Arcadia Quest is ranked 28th. The most important reason people chose Power Grid is:

The concepts are pretty easy to grab a hold of (buy power plants, connect different cities together, buy resources for your power plants, then make money and repeat). Each step has strategy involved with it - when you buy power plants you want to diversify from others as resources more in demand cost more - when connecting cities you are looking at pricing but also blocking other players off - you can buy extra resources to boost the price on other players, or buy the bare minimum for that turn etc etc.

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Pros

Pro

Easy to understand but still allows for good micromanagement/strategy

The concepts are pretty easy to grab a hold of (buy power plants, connect different cities together, buy resources for your power plants, then make money and repeat). Each step has strategy involved with it - when you buy power plants you want to diversify from others as resources more in demand cost more - when connecting cities you are looking at pricing but also blocking other players off - you can buy extra resources to boost the price on other players, or buy the bare minimum for that turn etc etc.

Pro

It's hard for 1 player to hold onto the lead

You know those games where one player has a great start, and nobody can even dream of catching up? That doesn't happen in Power Grid. It balances itself out - the player currently winning goes first when buying power plants (they get only the current selection), and they build new cities last (worst selection) and pay the most for raw materials.

While the game punishes (at least in a way) the leading player, it helps to balance games and make them more fun overall. In addition, you can strategically not build more cities and hold yourself back if you need the advantage.

Pro

Very little randomness

There is almost no randomness involved in the game, making achieving mastery of the game about understanding your opponents' plans and working around them.

Pro

Replayable

The game will most definitely lead to more future plays because of the huge number of variables. In the base game there are many characters and equipment cards available, so players will get different combinations and use altered strategies. All scenarios except for the last one can be played in different orders, which influences their difficulty significantly – a scenario that was easy on your first playthrough might be very different the next time around. Because of this every campaign will also play out differently.

In addition to that, there are plenty of expansions that add new scenarios, enemies, heroes, and mechanics. There is also the possibility to create custom scenarios or find them online.

If you can’t or don’t want to play the campaign, you can also choose to play a separate scenario by quickly creating guilds, choosing the level, and dealing upgrade cards to everyone. The player with the most gold coins wins.

Pro

Easy to teach

The game is not difficult at all, since even children can easily play it. On your turn you can either activate one of your three heroes or rest your party. The heroes can move three spaces and attack or do it the other way around. Combat is done by choosing a weapon and rolling the amount of special dice shown on the weapon card. After that the weapon is exhausted and you must rest to use it again. Resting also revives any dead heroes.

To finish scenarios players must complete quests. There are both PvE quests that require you to kill monsters or escort characters and PvP quests that make you slay heroes from other guilds. The first player to complete three quests, one of which is a PvP quest, is the winner of the scenario and may choose the next scenario to play. The winners of scenarios receive additional bonuses that come in later in the campaign.

After the scenario is complete, players can use the gold coins they’ve earned in the scenario to purchase new gear. All heroes who died during the scenario receive a corresponding amount of death tokens. The player must then draw the same number of cards from the “Death Curse” deck and take the card with the highest value. These cards weaken the hero in the next scenario and are removed after that scenario is finished.

Pro

Light-hearted and funny

The game can’t be taken very seriously because of the art style and the way it plays. This makes Arcadia Quest a good game for all ages and settings – children, adults, families.

Arcadia Quest is very cartoony, and the cards are often quite humorous, for example, a possible “Death Curse” players can draw can be a “Severe nosebleed” card.

The game is full of memorable and hilarious moments as you and your friends battle through the campaign competing with monsters and each other. The quests you receive will make you hunt down heroes of other guilds or try to somehow block them off, preventing them from completing the monster hunting quests. The rolling mechanic can also lead to some comments - players face off hoping to get lucky with critical hits.

Pro

Good component quality

The components should hold up very well to regular wear and tear. The gameboard consists of large and thick cardboard tiles, the cards and player boards are made from durable cardstock, the miniatures are made of good quality soft plastic, and all the small cardboard tokens are also tough.

Pro

Great aesthetics

Arcadia Quest has a very nice family-friendly cartoony art-style that suits the light-hearted theme of the game. Both the heroes and the monsters have oversized heads that add to this nature. All the components are very detailed – cards, game tiles, tokens, and especially the plastic figures. Since the figures are all white you can also get creative and paint them.

Pro

No gamemaster

Unlike many other dungeon-crawl games, Arcadia Quest doesn’t require a designated player to become a gamemaster, so everyone can join in on the fun. This is because of the monster mechanics. Monsters get to attack players in reaction to their movements and attacks. The player to the right of the active player takes control of the provoked monster – moves, rolls dice, etc.

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Cons

Con

No room for creativity

Once you fall behind, there aren't many ways to catch up. Virtually everything can be calculated (only power plants are random), meaning there is little surprise. Once you get started, you keep trucking along the same path until somebody wins.

Con

Potential runaway leader problem

A player might become too powerful in the campaign by getting the right gear on the right character and get a huge lead on others, which makes them the most likely to win scenarios, get even better equipment, and reinforce their lead. There is no real way of preventing this because there is no catch-up mechanic that doesn’t involve luck. Ganging up on the powerful player isn’t very effective either.

Con

Requires dedication to finish

Getting the same group together to finish the campaign can be a struggle sometimes. This is a popular issue with campaign-based board games. The full campaign is going to take a pretty long time – up to six hours.

Con

Needs storage space

The box of the game contains a lot of stuff. Chances are, you won’t be able to squeeze it all back once you’re done with the scenario, so, as is common for games with a lot of components, getting separate containers might be a good idea.

Con

A lot of setup

Before you can start delving into the abandoned city of Arcadia you need to dig through tiles and set up monsters, doors, walls, portals and the whole scenario while constantly consulting the manual for the correct pattern, so the first ten minutes or so can be a bit frustrating.

Con

Not everyone will enjoy combat

The combat in Arcadia Quest requires you to roll special dice that features a critical hit mechanic, which can influence results a lot. You can attack with a ranged attack or a melee attack, and you need to roll the corresponding icon or a crit. A crit is a guaranteed hit and a re-roll. The same idea applies for rolling defensive dice – you need a shield or a crit. Basically, this means that you could theoretically kill someone or escape death by rolling one dice repeatedly if you keep getting crits, which can be very frustrating for others.

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